Electoral Change Research Articles

Electoral change through generational replacement: An age-period-cohort analysis of vote choice across 21 countries between 1948 and 2021

People’s generation may have become one of the core predictors of their vote choice. This study examines this hypothesis across 21 Western established democracies between 1948 and 2021. An age-period-cohort analysis on 258 national election surveys (N = 462.084) reveals that the most recent generations are much less likely to vote for the major right-wing party in two-party systems. In multi-party systems, the gradual decline of Christian democratic parties has been largely driven by the generational replacement of pre-WW2 cohorts. Social democratic and conservative parties may face a challenge in future decades because their support is particularly low among the most recent generations whereas liberal, socialist, and particularly green parties stand to gain from generational replacement. Far-right parties have been least popular among voters who came of age during the 1930s and 1940s. A small life-cycle effect points out that people over the age of 65 vote slightly more conservative.

Navigating Potential Pitfalls in Difference-in-Differences Designs: Reconciling Conflicting Findings on Mass Shootings’ Effect on Electoral Outcomes

Work on the electoral effects of gun violence in the U.S. relying on difference-in-differences designs has produced findings ranging from null to substantively large effects. However, as difference-in-difference designs, on which this research relies, have exploded in popularity, scholars have documented several methodological issues including potential violations of parallel-trends and unaccounted for treatment effect heterogeneity. These pitfalls (and their solutions) have not been fully explored in political science. We apply these advancements to the unresolved debate on gun violence’s effects on U.S. electoral outcomes. We show that studies finding a large positive effect of gun violence on Democratic vote shares are a product of a failure to properly specify difference-in-differences models when underlying assumptions are unlikely to hold. Once these biases are corrected, shootings show little evidence of sparking large electoral change. Our work clarifies an unresolved debate and provides a cautionary guide for scholars currently employing difference-in-differences designs.

The political consequences of technological change that benefits low-skilled workers

Abstract Technological change often increases demand for high-skilled jobs, with low-skilled losers turning to the populist right in response. The political effects of technological change that increases demand for low-skilled workers are largely unknown. The growth of the salmon fish-farming industry in rural Norway improved the labor-market situation for low-skilled workers, and we find that support for the populist right-wing party increased in municipalities that benefitted from the industry growth. The electoral change is due to a right-wing shift on the economic, but not the cultural dimension. Our results support political economy frameworks that point to lower demand for state interventions after positive labor market shocks, but raise the question of in what contexts support for populism will decline.

Key Criteria Influencing Stakeholders’ Decision-making about PB Continuation: The Case of the Czech Republic

Abstract Participatory budgeting (PB) is a modern trend involving citizens in decisions on distributing public resources. Assuming that the identified drawbacks of PB are described as internal and external factors, simple criteria were developed to predict the fate of PB. These criteria reflect stakeholders’ decisions about PB continuation in the future. Using panel data between 2017-2022 from the Czech Republic, it appears that the selected criteria were evaluated as an upgrading process, signalling the continuation of PB. However, this does not mean abandoning the process in the case of downgrading. The results indicate a certain probability for upgrading PB to continue, while the fate of downgrading PB is indeterminate and could depend on other factors. In the case of new governance after an electoral change, using the criteria could help explain the actual situation regarding the interest of stakeholders in PB.

Determinants of swing voting in Africa: evidence from Ghana's elections

ABSTRACT An increasing number of African countries are experiencing electoral power shifts, indicating that more voters are switching loyalties between parties and candidates. Theories that pin electoral change in Africa on clientelism, patronage, and ethnic cleavages fail to account for the dynamics surrounding these shifting loyalties. This study probes the factors that pry swing voters away from core supporters in African elections. Using data from a nationally representative sample of over 3000 voters across Ghana, we find evidence that voters exempted from positive clientelist inducements (gifts) were more likely to cast swing votes. We also find that voters exposed to negative clientelism (wary of violence or forceful forfeiture of benefits after elections) were more likely to cast swing votes. Nonetheless, voters wary of violence but who have received gifts in exchange for their votes were less likely to swing their vote, indicating that negative clientelism is only effective when accompanied by positive inducements. Finally, we find that voters who prioritize parties’ performance records were more likely to switch their votes from one party to another. Our results imply that the rising political power shifts on the continent are driven by an increasing share of voters unencumbered by clientelist inducements and a rising determination to prioritize national interests over parochial benefits.

“Extending the Referendum Model of Presidential Election Outcomes: Both Candidates Matter”

We offer a candidate-centered amendment to incumbent-referendum models of presidential election outcomes that dominate the literature on post-WWII presidential elections. Our argument is that incumbent-challenger differences in character qualifications and issue concerns of the electorate should be included. These differentials, which recognize the advantage or disadvantage of the incumbent relative to the challenger party candidate have strong effects on election outcomes independent of the state of the economy, the number of years the incumbent party has held the White House, and presidential approval. Properly understood, in addition to the state of national affairs, presidential election outcomes are about the choice presented to the mass public. This added element means that candidates matter for election outcomes and electoral change in ways that have not been properly appreciated in existing scholarship.

The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy

For many governments, enacting green policies is a priority, but such policies often impose on citizens substantial and uneven costs. How does the introduction of green policies affect voting? We study this question in the context of a major ban on polluting cars introduced in Milan, which was strongly opposed by the populist right party Lega. Using several inferential strategies, we show that owners of banned vehicles—who incurred a median loss of €3,750—were significantly more likely to vote for Lega in the subsequent elections. Our analysis indicates that this electoral change did not stem from a broader shift against environmentalism, but rather from disaffection with the policy’s uneven pocketbook implications. In line with this pattern, recipients of compensation from the local government were not more likely to switch to Lega. The findings highlight the central importance of distributive consequences in shaping the political ramifications of green policies.

Explaining Europe’s transformed electoral landscape: structure, salience, and agendas

AbstractWhat has caused the marked, cross-national, and unprecedented trends in European electoral results in the 21st century? Scholarly explanations include social structure and challenger party entrepreneurship. We argue that these electoral changes more proximally result from public issue salience, which results from societal trends and mainly affects rather than is caused by party agenda setting. We use aggregate-level panel data across 28 European countries to show that the public issue salience of three issues—unemployment, immigration, and the environment—is associated with later variation in the results of the conservative, social democrat, liberal, radical right, radical left, and green party families in theoretically expected directions, while the party system issue agenda has weaker associations. Public issue salience, in turn, is rooted in societal trends (unemployment rates, immigration rates and temperature anomalies), and, in some cases, party agenda setting. We validate our mechanism at the individual-level across 28 European countries and using UK panel data. Our findings have implications for our understanding of the agency of parties, the permanency of recent electoral changes, and how voters reconcile their social and political worlds.

2022: HIGH NOON OF POLITICAL TURBULANCE IN SLOVAKIA

The article examines the political processes in Slovakia in 2022. It is noted that the past year has demonstrated the fragility and weakness of the ruling coalition, which, following a lengthy debate, was forced to resign. The author notes that the central reason for the collapse of the Cabinet was the personal hostility of the country’s leading politicians – I. Matovič and R. Sulik. However, they demonstrated a keen desire to delay the collapse of the coalition, aggravating the internal political situation in the country as much as possible, since they realized the impossibility of participating in the formation of the next government following the results of early elections. The paper notes significant electoral changes in Slovakia since 2020: there has been a total decline in the popularity of the parties that formed the Cabinet, and an increase in the authority of the forces in opposition and promising the return of stable times. Meanwhile, early elections scheduled for September 30, 2023 do not yet guarantee the opposition a victory. The Slovak political tradition and the experience of neighboring Central European countries point to the possibility of liberal politicians uniting in various political alliances to prevent their ideological opponents from gaining power.

Timor-Leste 2021-2022: Electoral change and economic reset

Timor-Leste 2021-2022: Electoral change and economic reset

Who benefits from the retrospective vote? Bringing in new parties

Democracies across the world have experienced the rise of new political parties. The dominant view of the model of (retrospective) economic voting implicitly assumes that the main beneficiary of electoral change is the established opposition. However, the rise of new political parties affects how we think of retrospective (economic) voting. This article presents a more nuanced picture of electoral change and considers when electoral turnover benefits established opposition parties, and when new political parties. The theoretical model introduces different macro-economic and macro-political motives for electoral turnover. Using a novel dataset on electoral change, covering 59 democracies worldwide, it is found that high levels of corruption discredit the entire political establishment, and promote the rise of new parties. The effect of economic hardship is more nuanced. Low economic growth mainly benefits the established opposition because voters look for an established alternative within the political system. Rising unemployment, by contrast, promotes the rise of new parties.

"누가 스윙 투표자인가?: 2021년 서울 · 부산시장 보궐선거에서의 유권자 투표행태 분석"

본 연구에서는 연속된 두 번의 선거에서 각기 다른 정당을 지지하는 유권자를 스윙 투표자로 규정하고 ‘왜’ 그리고 ‘누가’ 스윙 투표자가 되었는지를 2020년 21대 총선에서의 투표 선택 결과와 2021년 서울·부산시장 보궐선거 결과를 바탕으로 분석하고자 한다. 보궐선거 당시에 정권 심판론이 우세하였다고 하더라도, 총선에서 압도적으로 승리했던 더불어민주당이 불과 1년 만에 서울과 부산 두 지역에서 큰 격차로 완패하였다는 것은 그 사이에 유권자의 투표선택에 많은 변화가 생겼다는 것을 의미한다. 본 연구의 분석 결과에 따르면 첫째, 이번 보궐선거에서 청년층과 남성은 이해관계에 따라 전략적으로 특정 정당에 지지를 보내기도 하고 철회하기도 하는 스윙 투표자로서의 역할을 수행하였다. 둘째, 보궐선거 당시에 정부가 구체적인 성과를 보여주지 못한 정책들에 대해 부정적으로 평가한 유권자들이 회고적 판단을 통해 스윙 투표를 하였다. 마지막으로, 중도적 이념성향을 가진 유권자, 유권자와 더불어민주당 사이의 주관적 이념거리를 멀게 인식하는 유권자, 그리고 정당에 대해 양가적 태도를 취하는 유권자가 특정 정당을 지속적으로 지지하기보다는 스윙 투표를 선택하였다. 결국, 정치적 양극화가 심화된 시기에 선거의 승패에 결정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있는 스윙 투표자를 이해하는 것은 선거에서 정당이 민주적 책임성과 반응성을 향상시키는 데 중요한 정치적 함의를 갖는다.

Do coalition and formateur expectations affect vote switching?

AbstractThe existing literature on vote switching – a major cause of electoral change – rarely discusses strategic incentives as motivating voters to switch parties between elections. We study how coalition-directed voting, a common type of strategic voting in parliamentary democracies, affects vote switching. Utilizing an original three-wave online panel survey conducted in Israel in 2019–2020, we show that voters engage in formateur optimization and policy balancing: they switch their vote in order to affect the identity of the next formateur and desert a party they previously voted for if they believe it will not enter the next coalition. We also show that the perceived level of competition between potential formateurs moderates the effect of coalition expectations on vote switching. The paper highlights the importance of coalition and formateur considerations in electoral change and contributes to a better understanding of both coalition-directed voting and individual-level vote switching.

Disappointed Expectations: Downward Mobility and Electoral Change

Postindustrial occupational change has ended an era of unprecedented upward mobility. We examine the political implications of this immense structural shift by introducing the concept of status discordance, which we operationalize as the difference between status expectations formed during childhood and outcomes realized in adulthood. We leverage German household panel data and predictive modeling to provide empirical estimates of status expectations based on childhood circumstances and parental background. The analysis reveals that political dissatisfaction is widespread among voters who fall short of intergenerational status expectations. We show that such dissatisfaction is associated with higher abstention rates, less mainstream party support, and more radical voting. Moreover, we explore variation in status discordance by gender, education, and occupation, which influence the choice between radical left and right parties. Our findings highlight how expectations about opportunities underlie generational voting patterns and shed light on the ongoing breakdown of the postwar political consensus.

The Effects of Proportional Representation on Election Lawmaking: Evidence from New Zealand

ABSTRACT It is widely recognised that politicians are self-interested and desire election rules beneficial to their re-election. Although partisanship in electoral system reform is well-understood, the factors that affect partisan manipulation of other democratic ‘rules of the game’ – including election administration, franchise laws, and campaign finance – has received little attention to date. New Zealand is so far the only established democracy to shift from a non-proportional to a proportional electoral system and thus presents an ideal case to test the effects of electoral system change on the politics of election reform. This article examines partisan and demobilising election reforms passed between 1970 and 1993 under first-past-the-post and between 1997 and 2020 under mixed-member proportional representation. Moving to a proportional system has failed to diminish the amount of partisan election lawmaking, though voting restrictions have become less common. These results should caution against claims that reforming a country’s electoral system will necessarily curtail the passage of normatively undesirable election reforms.

Demographic indicators of voter shift between 2016 and 2020 presidential elections

Political analysts have long studied demographic shifts through elections, and with the results of the 2020 presidential election, this opportunity comes again. Not only does maintaining an understanding of broad demographic shifts help to understand changing U.S. communities but studying them in relation to electoral changes helps campaign outreach efforts to increase turnout and inform political analysts about future elections. Our study aimed to determine the demographic indicators for voter shift between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections based on demographic data put through a K-nearest neighbors classification algorithm (KNN) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Our original hypothesis was that COVID-19 cases would be the best indicator because the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted society. Using the KNN, we found that the employment sector as the best indicator with an accuracy of 67.3% across 893 counties. Alternatively, our results using the PCA showed that the total population was the best indicator. An overarching theme between these two results was urbanity, which heavily influenced both employment sector composition and total population. Notably, we found that race was the poorest indicator, with a 49% accuracy using KNN. Our results indicated a rise in identity politics, a political approach where people form and maintain political views based on social and group identities, which could further be explained by increasing division between urban and rural areas. Additionally, inaccuracies of the KNN raise concerns about the efficacy of contemporary race modeling in predicting voter shift.

Electoral Continuity and Change in South Korea since Democratization

The literature on South Korean elections has shown that voters’ region, ideology, and generation shape their preferences at the polls. Few studies, however, have investigated the long-term effects of these variables or the difference in the effects of ideology and generation between regions. In this article, we generate theoretical expectations of Korean voters’ voting behavior, analyzing cleavage structures in the party system since democratization, and we then examine the interactive effects of region with ideology and generation across voters from Gyeongsang and Jeolla, in six presidential elections from 1992 to 2017. We find that ideology and generation have stronger effects among Gyeongsang voters than among Jeolla voters. To be specific, ideology and generation often divide Gyeongsang voters, especially when the Democratic Party nominates a presidential candidate from Gyeongsang; Jeolla voters are more homogeneous in their support for the party, regardless of their ideology and generation.

The Malaysian Election Commission: Navigating Electoral Authoritarianism and Political Change

AbstractThe urgency of electoral reforms has long been identified as a key to improving democracy in Malaysia. For decades, electoral manipulation through gerrymandering, malapportionment, and issues with the electoral roll and conduct of elections have undermined democratic quality and competition. The Malaysian Election Commission (EC) has – understandably – come under scrutiny for its role in facilitating and sustaining these problems. However, what requires a greater level of attention is the question of how the EC – despite its position as a constitutional institution that exists independently from the other branches of government – has operated in ways that undermined Malaysia's democracy and maintained a dominant party regime for over six decades. This Article brings this to light by examining the structural, institutional, and political conditions that shape the EC's operation, particularly with regard to re-delineation of constituencies and the conduct of elections. It argues that flaws in constitutional design, along with subsequent constitutional amendments, have rendered the EC vulnerable to partisan capture and thus affected its ability to function as an independent constitutional institution. In addition, this Article demonstrates how changes in political imperatives and judicial restraint in reviewing the EC's decision-making have also contributed to the deficiencies in Malaysia's electoral democracy.

Partisanship & nationalization in American elections: Evidence from presidential, senatorial, & gubernatorial elections in the U.S. counties, 1872–2020

Scholars argue that contemporary American elections are pronounced in their degree of partisanship and nationalization. While much of this work largely uncovers a heightened degree of nationalization in contemporary elections, little is known about how far back these patterns generalize. Given the limited availability of American electoral data, this work also generally focuses on a single office or during a certain segment of the post-war period since 1946. Moreover, this work largely focuses on states as salient units of analysis, masking potential variation found in U.S. counties, the smallest geographical unit constituting panel observations over time and across elections. In this note, we leverage a novel dataset of county-level election returns for President, U.S. Senate, and Governor, to specify a model assessing whether American elections are more nationalized and partisan than during any other period since the Civil War. We find evidence that presidential and Senate elections are more partisan today than any period since the Civil War, while gubernatorial elections are as partisan today as they were during the late 1800s. Our findings have implications for contemporary-based theories explaining the rise of partisanship in American elections and demonstrates the utility of county-level data in assessing electoral changes in America.

Clashes Involving National Popular Vote, Hare (“RCV”), Maine, Alaska

ABSTRACTApparently unnoticed by its advocates, a prominent effort to improve the troubled US presidential-election system—the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)—is on a collision course with another effort at electoral change—“ranked-choice voting” (RCV, known previously by less ambiguous names). The NPVIC is a clever device intended, without constitutional amendment, to elect as president the nationwide popular-vote winner (i.e., the plurality-vote winner) rather than the electoral-vote winner. Election results in 2000, 2016, and 2020 enhanced its support. However, the (constitutional) ability of even one state to replace its plurality voting with another voting system causes the popular-vote total posited for the NPVIC to be undefined, thereby rendering the NPVIC unusable. Maine and Alaska recently switched from plurality voting to RCV for presidential elections. Consequently, tangled results and turmoil could occur with the NPVIC. To improve presidential elections, replacing plurality voting with other systems appears to be more sensible than pursuing the NPVIC.